"Temporary Gentleman."
BOMBARDMENT
The day before we came back into trenches I meant to have written you, but the chance didn't arise. Now we have been in just twenty-four hours, and though the time has gone like lightning, because one has been on the jump all the while, yet, looking back, it seems ever so long since we were in billets. A good deal has happened.
For the first time since we've been out here we took over in broad daylight yesterday afternoon, and I've never known Fritz so quiet as he was. Not only were there no shells, but very few bullets were flying while we were taking over, and the ——s were clearing out for their week in billets. We had everything in apple-pie order and the night's duties mapped out, stores checked, and ammunition dished out—the extra night supply I mean—before tea, and were just thinking how remarkably well-behaved the Boche was and what a great improvement it was to take over by daylight. And then the band played!
I had been counting the supply of bombs in the Company grenade store, and was in the act of setting my watch by Taffy's, standing there in the trench at a quarter to five, when, with a roar, shells landed in six different parts of our line; not in the trench, you know, but somewhere mighty close handy. Of course, you might say there was nothing very startling about half a dozen shells landing near us, especially as nobody was hit. And that's true. But there was something queer about it, all the same. We both felt it. Taffy looked at me, and I looked at him, and "Oho!" said Taffy. And I entirely agreed.
Perhaps it was partly the unusual quietness that had come before. Anyhow, we both started at the double for Company Headquarters, and I know we both had the same idea—to see whether "the Peacemaker" wanted the word passed for everyone to take cover in such artillery shelters as we have now in this sector; and, mind you, they're miles better than they were when we first took over.
But, bless your heart! we needn't have bothered getting word about it from the O.C. Before we got near the Company dug-out the men were seeing to that for themselves, as they have been taught to do, and the trenches were empty except, of course, for the sentries and their reliefs, who, with the observation officer, would remain at their posts even if the bottom fell out of the world.